This invention relates to a target hitting game machine, such as a so-called "whack-a-mole" game machine, in which a player hits imitation moles or like targets randomly emerging from openings in a playing board.
Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 54-134588 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 57-170276 disclose, for example, game machines in which a player competes for points which are gained by timingly hitting any of such targets as imitation mice or alligators which are reciprocatingly exposed from their hidden position at a specified interval.
Also. European Patent Publication No. EP-0276136 A2 discloses a game machine in which imitations of mice and cats are arranged on a playing board. In this prior art, a player gives a command to attack an imitation mouse as it emerges in a variety of its reciprocating movement patterns and, if the command timing is appropriate, an imitation cat controlled by a computer program comes up and hits the imitation mouse. A point is added to the player's score if the attack is successful.
These conventional target hitting game machines require a complicated drive mechanism since they all include reciprocally moved targets. Further, their overall construction becomes large due to the need for providing sufficient space to cover reciprocating strokes of the individual targets. In addition, these conventional target hitting game machines are not so fantastically attractive to players since a point is simply added in reward for every successful attack, which offers limited excitation in playing games. In these conventional target hitting game machines, the targets reciprocate between their hidden and exposed positions and, therefore, a player can easily determine whether to strike a particular target depending on whether it can be seen from the player's viewpoint. In other words, these machines do not have so difficulty as to give a sufficient winning enjoyment to the player.